Press Your Luck (1983-1986)
This is chronicling the original Press Your Luck. Gameplay Question Round In the question rounds, Peter asked four questions one at at time. On each question the first player to buzz in had a chance to answer. The answer he/she gave became the first of three answers for his/her two opponents to choose from. A correct buzz-in answer was worth three spins while a correct multiple choice answer was worth one spin. In the event a contestant who buzzed in first ran out of time, that contestant had to sit out the rest of the question while the other two players played the multiple choice part of the question. In the event that no contestant buzzed in when time ran out, all three contestants played the multiple choice part of the question. 20 spins were available in each question round, but the highest one contestant can earn was 12 spins (which was achieved on rare occasions). In the pilot, Peter asked five questions for a maximum total of 25 spins, with the maximum that one contestant can earn being 15 spins. The Big Board When the question round was over, the contestant island turned around for the contestants to see the big Press Your Luck game board. The fonts used were Franklin Gothic Medium Cond for the cash, while Times New Roman Bold was used for "+ One Spin" and prizes. The board consisted of 18 squares with the show's logo in the center. On the board were thousands of dollars in cash & prizes and Whammies. The contents of every square rotated every second, as there were three slides in each square. In the first round the player with the fewest spins went first. The player with the most money at the end of round one played last in round two. There are alternatives when the Big Board rounds occur: *If there's a tie for the fewest spins, the player on the left goes first. *If there's a tie for the most spins or money (in Round 2), the player on the right plays last. *If all players end up with the same amount of money in the first round, the question round decides. The player who wins the most spins in the second question round gets to play last in Round 2. *If there's a tie for the least money in Round 2, the player with the fewest spins plays first; if there's a tie for spins and money, the player on the left plays first. The player in control of the board played as many of his/her spins as he/she liked. On each spin, lights around the game board's spaces flash around the board, and the contestant stopped the board by hitting his/her button and by yelling "STOP!" When the board stopped, if the contestant hit a dollar value it was added to his/her score; if he/she hit a prize, it was credited to that player and its value was added to his/her score and that prize would be replaced with a new prize. If at any time the contestant hit a Whammy, he/she lost all his/her money and prizes up to that point, and hitting four Whammies took that contestant out of the game. Upon hitting a Whammy, a short cartoon was presented in which the Whammy would mock the contestant and take away his/her money and prizes in many ways possible; sometimes the cartoon would show the Whammy being crushed, flattened, hurt or otherwise humiliated in different ways. Sometimes, the Whammy was accompanied by his girlfriend Tammy (or his dog Fang). On some animations, the whammy would imitate several famous people that were popular at that time, including Liberace (he would play a piano until the chandelier above the whammy's head falls on him), Michael Jackson (dressed as the late pop star, glove and all, he would dance his famous Moonwalk to Jackson's hit "Billie Jean"), Boy George, lead singer of the band Culture Club (dressed in the singer's unusual attire, he would sing "Who Would Ever Hurt a Whammy?", a parody of the band's hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?", until a hammer suddenly appears and flattens him). After the cartoon, a Whammy card (accompanied by a "boing" sound) would pop up in front of the contestant. If a player Whammies out, his/her scoreboard is turned off and the remaining spins are discarded. In the first round, if a player has hit two Whammies, Peter always reminded that player, "You want to be careful about picking up a third Whammy in Round 1." In addition to the cash & prizes, some of the cash squares on the board were paired up with extra spins ($???/$?,???/>$??,??? + ONE SPIN). Each time any of those kind of squares was hit, the player's spin total was frozen and the money attached to that spin square was added to his/her money total. At some point during a contestant's turn, if that contestant fears that he/she is about to run into the Whammy on the next spin and/or is tired of pressing his/her luck, that contestant would pass his/her spins to the player in the lead or if he/she is in the lead had to pass them to the second place player. And should both players have the same score, the passing player would decide who to pass the spins to. The player with the passed spins must take all the spins until he/she hit a Whammy (at which point the remaining passed spins would be transferred from the passed column to the earned column) or has run out of those spins, and each time the passed contestant hit money plus a spin, the spin just played was transferred to the earned column. During the final spin of the game, a player must do any of the following in order to win the game: *Avoid hitting a Whammy if he/she is in first place. *If the player is in second place, he/she can pass the last spin to first place and hopes they hit a Whammy. *If the player presses, they will have to land on a specific square that will give them enough money to win the game or any cash amount with a spin to stay alive, depending on the difference between the two scores. *If the player presses and they trail first place by $5,000 or more, the only option is to stop on a square that gives them an additional spin to stay in the game (this helps if the spin was passed to 2nd place). Special Squares In addition to the cash (with & without a spin), prizes, and Whammies, there were other squares on the board that affected gameplay. *'Big Bucks': The most important square on the board always seen in square #12, which if hit, transferred that player to the highest amount on the board (always in square #4). **In the video game for the Wii, unfortunately, this guarantees a trip in Round One only. (Nevertheless) This inspired the catchphrase, "Big Bucks, No Whammies." *'Directional Spaces': Where the light around the square containing it would be moved to another square. **'Go Back/Advance Two Spaces: '''Where the light moved two squares away from it/them. **'Move One Space': The contestant had a choice between the two squares touching it. It's located on the top corner to the left in Round One and on the middle side to the right and toward the bottom left in Round 2. **'Pick A Corner': Premiered on Episode 115 John/Terre/Mac (February 28, 1984), it always appeared in square #6 in round two. It worked like Move One Space except (true to its name) that the contestant had a choice between the contents of one of the three corners of the board. In 1984 until mid-1985, a Whammy can be one of the choices since it was in the top left hand corner square (#1) but was never chosen. The Whammy was later moved to square #18 swapping with $1400 (which was appropriate since it started out in square one to begin with). ***In Episode 165 Veronica/Catherine/Bob (May 8, 1984), the color of Pick A Corner changed to dark green with white font, and fades as seasons of the show pass by. **'Across the Board': Premiered in Episode 639 Zena/Robert/Ellen (March 11, 1986), that space sent the light directly across from that square (to square #8). *'Double Your $$': Introduced on Episode 139 Geralyn/Julio/Carla (March 8, 1984), awards a cash prize equal to the player's current score, effectively doubling their money. **This was changed to "'Double Your $$ + One Spin'" on April 12, 1984. In both cases, the space can only be seen in round two and awarded once per game. Once collected, it is replaced by a regular prize. So in effect, this was a prize space. *'Add A One: Premiered on Episode 508 Nomi/Steve/Janis (September 5, 1985). So called because if it was hit, a one was added next to the dollar sign in that player's total (ex: $0 - $10, $2,000 - $12,000). If a player has more than $10,000 before the space was hit, $10,000 was added to the contestant's total instead. This premiered in the fall of 1985 and was only shown in round one. Like Double Your $$ (+ ONE SPIN), it acted as a prize space, for once it was hit, it was replaced by a regular prize. *$2,000 Or Lose One Whammy': First appeared on Episode 528 Kirk/Dee Dee/Teresa (September 17, 1984). It was a possibly important square added to the board. So called because whenever it was hit, the contestant had a choice to either add $2,000 to his/her money total or drop one of his/her Whammies. The latter choice was completely important, a godsend for contestants when they were in danger of whammying out of the game. This meant it was possible for a contestant to get eliminated from the game with five or more Whammies. Upon losing a Whammy, the appropriate Whammy card dropped back down into the contestant's desk. If the contestant did not have any Whammies when this was hit or if the player hits it on the final spin of the game, the $2,000 must be taken. The space was hit only once during the "Home Player Spin" contest and the in-studio contestant chose the $2,000 which went to the home player as well. It is not known what would have occurred if the player elected to lose a Whammy. The last Home Player Sweepstakes in October and November 1985 didn't have this space. Winning the Game The player with the most money at the end of Round Two won the game and kept all cash & prizes won. When a contestant won the game, all 18 squares on the game board flashed on and off in unison. If the game ended in a tie, the players who were tied won the game and kept their winnings. A player would also win the game if two contestants "Whammied out", and if the last player standing has not taken his/her spins, that player would play "against the house" by taking as many of his/her spins as he/she liked and stopped whenever he/she wanted, unless he/she also "Whammied out", in which case there would be no champion, and there would be three new players on the next show. More often than not, that player would choose to stop before exhausting all his/her spins. Championship players stayed on the show until they were defeated or exceeded the CBS winnings limit of $25,000 (all winnings over $25,000 were kept). In later shows starting on November 1, 1984, champs retired after appearing five days or exceeding the new winnings limit of $50,000 (whichever came first). Tournaments ''Press Your Luck held two week-long tournaments during its run. The first tournament was held in the spring of 1985 and it consisted of five self-contained games played by fifteen college students. A second tournament was held in the late summer of 1985 with similar rules, though the contestants were high school students. Trivia *Michael Larson is the highest winner on the show. After watching the show so many times, he noticed that the lights bounced in a predictable pattern. This strategy allowed him to amass $110,237 over the course of two episodes. Producers & other staff members noticed what he was doing, so some time after his episode (split into two) was taped, extra patterns were added by the August 1984 tapings in order to prevent this from happening again. At first, CBS believed that Larson was cheating, and refused to pay him his earnings on the show, but relented after they discovered that he wasn't cheating. Larson eventually squandered the money on bad investments and a telephone scam. His final TV appearance was a 1994 interview on Good Morning America which was covering the release of the movie Quiz Show and game show scandals. He died of throat cancer on February 16, 1999. *Other than the "Sylvester" episode, there were only a few episodes that encountered errors and technical difficulties causing a certain contestant to return on a future episode. However, those returning players will be playing as new players even though some had already won money the last time they appeared, and will not count along their previous winnings (Maggie Brown was one of them). * All 'returning players' on the show may have been cheated when stopping the board on either the last spin or the second or so on to last spin as they end up hitting a Whammy, making it complicated to win the game. *The bell from The Price is Right sounded every time spins were added to contestants' totals. Said bell was commonplace on many CBS game shows of the 1970s and 1980s. In the earliest episodes, the bell from The New $25,000 Pyramid sounded when a contestant passed his/her spins to an opponent. The clanging bells and whooping horns (also from The Price Is Right) were used amongst a multitude of sounds for the Home Player Spin, which later changed to a big band. It can be inferred that these sounds may be property of CBS Television City. *On two shows, three contestants were tied at zero causing all of them to return to play the next day. On the show's 200th episode, the same situation would have happened had a contestant (Vicky) hit a Whammy on her final spin. However, Vicky would win the game with $12,500. *Sylvester the Cat (voiced by the late Mel Blanc) called Peter on one show to inform him that "Sufferin' Succotash!" is his catchphrase (as well as explaining the origins for the phrase) and that Daffy Duck often steals his lines for more popularity. Sylvester also mentions that the rest of the Looney Tunes characters and their human co-workers are watching the show, and that even his wife Estelle (really the name of Mel Blanc's wife) knows that "Sufferin' Succotash!" is Sylvester's catchphrase. This all came about because the three contestants playing that day (supposedly) missed a question about that, and Sylvester called the show to clear that up; Sylvester even allowed Porky Pig (also voiced by Blanc) to come to the phone and say goodbye with his usual stuttering manner. Speedy Gonzales and a few other characters said hello and goodbye as well. As a result, Peter promised to call Warner Brothers' office the next time they will have a Looney Tunes-related question, and all three contestants (Pam, Sam, and Jerry) came back on future shows.The Sylvester Phone Call Unfortunately, no Looney Tunes characters were contestants themselves and that when all those three contestants appeared on their future shows, none of them won. In the Gameshow Marathon episode, Bugs Bunny is revealed to be the greatest cartoon character of all time. *Whammy poems sometimes appeared as Peter cut to a commercial. The poem would appear on the screen, as would the name of the home viewer, along with his/her hometown (and if the home viewer was a child, his/her age was included, too). More often than not, the poems would appear after the first Big Board round ended. It would gradually fade from the screen as the camera zoomed in on the Press Your Luck logo. Peter would also read poems at the end of the episode; however, he sometimes let a contestant read one. Peter would then close the show and say, "Thanks for pressing your luck. Bye-bye." *Press Your Luck was the second game show (and third pilot) where Peter Tomarken and Rod Roddy appeared together. Hit Man was the first. *There have been at least three contestants who earned no spins for a single round. Those occurred on February 28, 1984, in May 1985 (clarification needed) and in October 1985. *The show taped anywhere from ten to 12 episodes every other weekend, save for vacation time (five for Saturday and five for Sunday, five for Saturday and six for Sunday, or six for Saturday and six for Sunday). This would often result in cosmetic changes being made during certain weeks of shows (i.e., Pick-A-Corner debuted on a Tuesday, board sounds #2 and #3 each debuted on a Wednesday, Add-A-One debuted on a Thursday, and the ten-position in both board rounds was updated on a Friday). Cancellation Press Your Luck’s ratings were pretty solid for its first two years on CBS, but by the summer of 1985, CBS was faced with a financial crunch and stated that it didn't have enough money it wanted to renew its lead-in show, The Price is Right, so CBS opted to move Press to the 4:00 p.m. ET slot beginning on January 6, 1986, in order to give the slot to a Mark Goodson-produced show, a revival of Card Sharks with Bob Eubanks serving as host. The move to 4:00 p.m. ET resulted in affiliates dropping the show as 1986 dragged on. The number of affiliates that cleared the show was so low, and in August 1986, CBS had decided to cancel the series. Some speculated that the show's financial crunch may have been due to the show giving away too much money throughout the three-year run, and some also believe that excess spaces that awarded money plus a spin may have been to blame for the financial problems that Press, along with the 2002 reboot Whammy! had that may have contributed to their cancellations. The final episode of Press aired on CBS on September 26, 1986, and the series went out a normal episode, with no mention of the finale, which could imply that the producers didn't know the end was coming at the time. Music Pilot - KPM Music Long Main - "Flash (a)" by Keith Mansfield Short Main - "Flash (b)" by Keith Mansfield 1983 - Robert Israel & Lee Ringuette Press Your Luck Introduction Theme Song Press Your Luck Closing Theme Song The pitches in the original Big Board sound are D, E, G, B♭, D, A♭, F, C, E♭, D, B, A, C♯, E, F♯, A. They changed in Whammy!. Inventor Game created by Jan McCormack Show developed by Bill Carruthers Studio CBS Television City, Hollywood, California Spin-Offs Second Chance - The predecessor to Press Your Luck that aired on ABC in 1977. Whammy! The All New Press Your Luck - a 21st century version of Press Your Luck that aired on GSN from 2002 to 2003. Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal - a two-hour Michael Larson documentary special that aired on GSN in 2003. Gameshow Marathon - Press Your Luck was the fourth show of this series, the closest ever to a revival of the original version in 2006. Press Your Luck (2019) - a 21st century reboot of the 80s cult classic now hosted by Elizabeth Banks that currently airs on ABC since 2019. Rebroadcasts The series was rebroadcast on several affiliates and English-language cable networks since its 1986 cancellation. Republic Pictures put together a syndicated package consisting of six months worth of episodes, covering February 25, 1985 to August 23, 1985, which was believed to be the peak period for viewership on CBS. USA Network aired the syndication package to start, but by 1989, started airing episodes outside the syndication package. There were clusters of weeks never aired on USA, including the first 11 episodes of tbe series; weeks in which an upcoming Home Player Sweepstakes was announced; the entire first Home Player Sweepstakes, including Larson's episodes; holiday-themed episodes (except for Christmas 1983); and the September 1986 episodes. USA aired the show from 1987 until October 13, 1995. Sky One in England aired reruns of the series in the 1990s, but it is unknown what episodes were shown. Game Show Network started airing the show on September 1, 2001, starting with 200 episodes covering February 21, 1984 through November 30, 1984 (except for Episode 182 with Danielle/Alan/Cindy aired on May 31, 1984, and the Larson episodes). However, the Larson episodes were aired on March 17, 2003 as part of the documentary Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal, just before producer Bill Carruthers passed away. The Larson episodes aired as standalones for the first time in 19 years on June 3 and 4, 2003. Two weeks afterwards, GSN added another 250 episodes covering the remainder of 1984, up to and including November 15, 1985 (except for Episode 530, originally aired on October 4, 1985, which USA network also skipped). These roughly 450 episodes aired on a regular basis until it left the GSN schedule on March 30, 2009, and the network lost the rights on April 1 that year. However, the show returned on October 15, 2012 with fresh episodes covering the first 50 episodes of the series in 1983. At the time of GSN broadcast, some of the episodes were never aired since the original CBS broadcasts in 1983, but many previously aired on USA Network. Another roughly 60 episodes (57 of them never seen on GSN) covering December 1983 to February 1984 were added to the lease on April 1, 2013 (Episode 051 was skipped by GSN, but did previously air on USA, and later aired on Buzzr and Canada's GameTV). The lease continued until September 28, 2014, after which GSN finally acquired 130 episodes covering November 15, 1985 to May 30, 1986 (six episodes from April and May 1986 were skipped for some reason). GSN's latest lease covers previously aired episodes from June 27, 1984 to February 26, 1985. As of December 2018, the show does not air on GSN's schedule, though it did briefly air some episodes from July 1984 on Saturday nights in December 2017 and January 2018, and select episodes were aired in a Black Friday marathon on November 23, 2018. Upon launch, the digital subchannel Buzzr started airing Press Your Luck on June 2, 2015, starting with the September 1983 premiere, and as of December 2018, has aired up to somewhere in September 1984. The first full year of the series is aired at this point. Beginning on July 2, 2018, the Canadian cable channel GameTV started airing reruns of Press Your Luck, initially starting with 85 episodes from September 19, 1983 to January 18, 1984. However, on March 4, 2019, GameTV started airing from the much of the latter half of January 1984 through September 19, 1984. Episode 182, which GSN was notorious for skipping, did air on GameTV on August 30, 2019. It is not known at this point whether or not GameTV lost the rights to air the first 85 episodes of the series back in July 2019. Trade Ads Press Your Luck Ad 1987-01-05.png Press_Your_Luck_ad_1987-01-19.png Press_Your_Luck_Ad_1987-03-23.png PYL_1987.jpg References Links Press Your Luck Homepage PressYourLuck.tv press-your-luck.com Press Your Luck Madness Xanfan's Old Press Your Luck Page Xanfan's New Press Your Luck Page Rules for Press Your Luck and Whammy! at Loogslair.net Blog about the original PYL Official Pearson website for Press Your Luck via Internet Archive Category:Shows